Extended Epilogue
CILLIAN
Five years now, and the name over the door is mine.
MacCarthy Distillery. Carved into new stone above the entrance.
No trace of my father’s name anywhere on the building.
No hold on me anymore. No baggage left from that old world.
Connor’s long gone from this coast. Whatever Declan built for himself after I walked away, I don’t ask about him.
And in five years, no one has shown up at my door to bring any of that old life back.
That silence used to worry me. Now it just feels like peace.
I built most of this place myself, with a small crew who cared about the same things I did. Small batches. Real whiskey. Whiskey that actually tastes like it came from us. Nothing borrowed from a name I didn’t want anymore.
Ciara built something of her own too. A little office off the main house where she writes.
Actual books now. Actual chapters people read and love.
Stories that began when she walked into this place never planning to stay longer than she had to.
She won’t let me read the early drafts though.
Says I’m too biased to be useful. Probably true.
I come up from the cellar around six, boots covered in dust, and find her in the kitchen with our daughter perched on the counter. Both of them are elbow-deep in flour. The whole room smells like something sweet and a little burnt.
“Da.” Saoirse spots me first, waving a spoon around like she’s presenting evidence in a trial. “We’re making a cake. It’s a complete mess.”
“Looks like a masterpiece to me.”
“It’s for Mam’s book. The one she finished today.” Ciara wipes flour off her cheek with the back of her wrist, grinning at me over our daughter’s head. “Five years of writing and we’re celebrating with a cake that might genuinely be inedible.”
“I’ll eat it either way.”
“You say that about everything I cook.”
“Because it’s always true.” I press a kiss to the top of Saoirse’s head, then to Ciara’s temple, breathing her in for a second.
Flour and vanilla and something underneath that’s just her.
Our son’s out back with the dog and the nanny.
Every few seconds I hear that pure, joyful noise only a two-year-old and a dog chasing each other make.
It comes clear through the open window. The whole house feels the way I used to imagine houses were supposed to feel, back when I was a kid, pretending my house was a real home instead of a place for my father’s meetings.
I never thought I’d get this. A wife who chose me back when choosing me made no sense at all. Kids who have no idea what we both had to leave behind to get here, who’ll never have to carry the weight I carried before Ciara walked into that driveway and made all of it feel survivable.
The kids go down around eight, worn out from cake and the dog and everything else that fills a full day out here on the cliffs.
Ciara finds me on the back step after. The sea has gone dark and silver under the last bit of light.
She settles against my side by reflex, and I shift to make room before I even realize I’m doing it.
“Such a long day,” she says.
“It was a good one, though.”
“Yeah, best kind.” She tips her head onto my shoulder. “I finished it, by the way. The book.”
“I know. Saoirse announced it the second I walked in, beaming at me with flour on her face.”
She laughs, warm and easy. “She’s very invested with what I do, always tagging along now.”
“She just adores you. The cake’s a bonus.”
She smiles at that, then goes quiet for a second, watching the water. “Five years out here, and I still can’t believe this is our life.”
“Me too.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. “Best decision I’ve ever made.”
“You knew there was no guarantee we’d get this, and you fought for it anyway.”
“Wouldn’t change a thing.” I lace my fingers through hers and look out at the water with her. For a while, neither of us says anything. We don’t need to. After everything it took to get here, the silence feels earned.
Later, once the house has gone fully quiet, I follow her upstairs. There’s nothing rushed about either of us tonight. No fear chasing us the way it used to. We’ve got all the time in the world now. We always have, ever since we chose it for ourselves.
She’s soft and full by evening most days now, our youngest still not fully weaned, and I don’t need to ask.
I know her the way I know this house. Every part of her by heart.
I ease her back against the pillows and take my time.
She sighs the second my mouth finds her, no tension left anywhere in her body.
None of the old hesitation that used to sit under her skin.
“Five years,” I murmur against her, “and you still taste like home.”
“You’re ridiculous.” But her fingers slide into my hair and pull me closer, the way she never has to think twice about anymore.
There’s nothing left to prove between us.
That’s the thing that gets me most. Working slow at her breast while her breathing goes uneven above me.
The taste of her is warm and familiar. What she used to hide has just become another way I love her.
Ordinary now. Woven right into the rest of us.
No pads to hide. No doors to lock. Just us, in our own house, our kids asleep down the hall, loving each other the way we always wanted.
When she comes it’s quiet and easy. Nothing desperate in it. Just slow and full and completely hers to give, completely mine to take. I hold her through it, hand steady against her back. After, I pull her up against my chest, both of us breathing slow in the dark.
“I still think about that night sometimes,” she says after a while. “The engagement. Watching your father announce it like it was already decided, and knowing there was nothing I could do but stand there and watch.”
“I remember.” I press a kiss to her hair.
“I was so scared, Cillian. Not just for me. I kept picturing you actually marrying her. Some version of you living a whole life a few miles from here with someone who wasn’t me, and me just having to exist near that somehow.
” Her voice goes quieter. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how close that came to breaking me. ”
“That night used to haunt me too.” I press a kiss to her hair. “For a long time after, actually. I’d lie awake thinking about how close I came to being tied to a life that had nothing to do with you in it. Not being able to reach for you like this. Not having any of this.”
“And now?”
“Now I think about it less and less. Every good memory we make just quietly replaces it. Every morning like this one, every ordinary day with the kids, it all just sort of fills in the space that used to belong to that fear.” I tighten my arm around her.
“I mostly just feel grateful now. You, here, in my arms. This family. I don’t know how else to explain it except that I’m happy.
Genuinely, stupidly happy, in a way I didn’t think I was built for. ”
“Cillian.” She goes quiet for a second, tracing slow circles against my chest. “I don’t think I need anything else anymore. I couldn’t wish for more than what we have.”
“I feel the same. It feels surreal sometimes.”
“I keep waiting to feel like something’s missing. Waiting for things to feel wrong. But somehow it never does. It feels like everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be.”
“We already built it.” I say it plain, because it’s true. “The house, the kids, this whole life, you. Nobody handed us a single piece of it.”
“We built every bit of this. We’ve conquered it all.”
“I used to think I needed the company, the name, all of it, just to matter to anyone. Turns out I only ever needed you.”
“That’s very poetic,” she says, “for a man who came upstairs covered in cellar dust and sweat an hour ago.”
“You didn’t seem to mind.”
“I never mind.” She grins at me. “Five years married and I still think you’re disgustingly hot when you’ve been working all day. It’s a problem.”
“Doesn’t sound like a problem to me. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of how stunning you look anyway.
” I brush a thumb along her jaw. “Motherhood suits you, you know. I watch you with the kids and I fall for you all over again. I don’t know how you do it, flour in your hair, exhausted, still somehow the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. ”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“I’m being honest.” I kiss her slow, unhurried. “Every version of you, I just keep falling harder. I don’t think that’s going to stop.”
She laughs against my mouth, soft and warm, and pulls me closer instead of pulling away.
We stay like that for a long while, listening to the sea outside.
Steady. Endless. The same water that was there the first time I pulled her against me on that gravel driveway.
I didn’t even know her name yet, but something in me already refused to let her go.
Down the hall our kids sleep. They have no idea what we left behind to get here.
No idea about Declan or Connor or any of the pressure that nearly took everything from us.
They’ll grow up only ever knowing this house, this coast, this family.
Built by two people who chose each other when choosing was the hardest thing either of us had ever done.
I couldn’t have pictured any of this five years ago. Standing in that driveway, certain my whole life was already decided for me, I never once imagined I’d end up here. This house. This woman. This family. This quiet peace I didn’t even know I was allowed to want.
“I love you,” I tell her, quiet in the dark. Five years hasn’t made the words feel any less necessary.
“I love you too.” She settles fully into me, no hesitation left anywhere between us. “Every single day.”
“Always,” I agree. Outside, the Atlantic keeps moving against the cliffs. The same water that has watched every version of us since the beginning. And for the first time in my life, I don’t need anything else. Just this. Just home.